Being Muslim: A Groundwork Guide

By Haroon Siddiqui

Being Muslim is written for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It presents a readable explanation of the most complex and emotion-laden issues of our troubled times. The varying branches of Islam are analyzed and their history outlined — but the focus is on the present.

In speaking about and crossing political, cultural and religious divisions, this book offers a unique perspective, forged in Canada, a country where people from everywhere on earth have found a way to live in peace. Terrorism. Wars. Jihad. Hijab. Polygamy. Muhammad's many wives. Muslim prayer. Female circumcision. Honor killings. Sharia. Stoning. Status of Muslim women. All these topics and more are tackled in this fascinating and informative book for young adult readers.

"[The Groundwork Guides] are excellent books, mandatory for school libraries and the increasing body of young people prepared to take ownership of the situations and problems previous generations have left them." — Globe and Mail

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.1

Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.2

Determine a central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.3

Analyze in detail how a key individual, event, or idea is introduced, illustrated, and elaborated in a text (e.g., through examples or anecdotes).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.6

Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and explain how it is conveyed in the text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Groundwood Books
• Release date: Jul 1, 2006
• ISBN: 9781554980017

Haroon Siddiqui

Haroon Siddiqui is one of Canada's most highly regarded editors and past president of PEN Canada. He lives in Toronto.

Book preview

Praise for Being Muslim

The book is strong on dealing clearly and directly with current contentious issues involving Islam. Siddiqui is unequivocal and effective in exposing double standards and inconsistencies in contemporary media coverage of news stories in which Islam plays a part. — Canadian Materials Magazine

Haroon Siddiqui does a careful job showing how many different points of view there can be within a shared religion. — Chicago Tribune

Siddiqui’s book isn’t polemical, nor is his style argumentative. On the contrary, he painstakingly addresses all those familiar ‘charges’ that have been routinely laid at the door of the Muslims of the world, and which encompass distorted interpretations of their faith and practices. — Dawn News, Pakistan

...this basic knowledge will help non-Islamic readers to make sense of what they see on the news, and to sort out the truth from the propaganda. — Globe and Mail, Toronto

This book would benefit not only the ill-informed non-Muslim, but serve as an excellent reference for the lapsed or culturally estranged Muslim. — Gazette, Montreal

Extremely challenging and thought-provoking, this book would be an excellent resource for senior high school students interested in politics and debate. — Resource Links

This balanced, concise book is an excellent resource for social studies or debate class. — School Library Journal

A wise and informative book. — Eric Margolis, Toronto Sun

Siddiqui writes cogently and clearly, wasting no words. This is an introduction to Islamic history and practice, but it also makes larger social and political points... In the end, he emerges as a calm, determined voice for a more modern Islam and for a society in which it plays a fuller, more constructive role. — United Church Observer

[Siddiqui’s] confrontation of the difficult issues whether in terms of ‘psychological internment,’ multiple identities, or the challenges that Muslims themselves must confront, is both rare and refreshing. — Prince El Hassan bin Talal, Jordan

Groundwork Guides

Slavery Today

Kevin Bales & Becky Cornell

The Betrayal of Africa

Gerald Caplan

Sex for Guys

Manne Forssberg

Technology

Wayne Grady

Hip Hop World

Dalton Higgins

Democracy

James Laxer

Empire

James Laxer

Oil

James Laxer

Cities

John Lorinc

Pornography

Debbie Nathan

Being Muslim

Haroon Siddiqui

Genocide

Jane Springer

The News

Peter Steven

Gangs

Richard Swift

Climate Change

Shelley Tanaka

The Force of Law

Mariana Valverde

Series Editor

Jane Springer

Copyright © 2006, 2008 by Haroon Siddiqui

Revised and updated edition published in Canada and the USA in 2008 by

Groundwood Books

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without

the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian

Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright

license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press

128 Sterling Road, Lower Level, Toronto, Ontario M6R 2B7

or c/o Publishers Group West

1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the

Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Book

Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and the Ontario Arts

Council. Special thanks to the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Logo: Ontario Arts Council

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Siddiqui, Haroon

Being Muslim / by Haroon Siddiqui. – Rev. ed.

(Groundwork guides)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-88899-886-6 (bound)

ISBN-13: 978-0-88899-887-3 (pbk.)

ISBN-10: 0-88899-886-4 (bound)

ISBN-10: 0-88899-887-2 (pbk.)

1. Isalm. 2. Muslims. 3. Muslims–Canada. I. Title.

II. Series.

BP161.3.S53 2007     297     C2007-906206-7

Design by Michael Solomon

For my parents, the late Hafiz Mohammed Moosa Kandhlawi and the late Hafiza Amtul Baseer, for their endless love and indulgences that gave me the confidence to go anywhere, try anything.

My uncle, the late Hafiz Syed Sarwar Hussain, my first teacher and mentor, whose values continue to guide me.

My siblings, Maryam, Suleman and Hafiz Yousuf, for their enduring affection.

My wife, Yasmeen, whose animating presence lights up our household and whose judgment often saves me from mine.

Our sons, Fahad and Faisal, for whom and whose generation this book was written.

Contents

1 The Politics

Under Siege

Islamophobia

The Muslim Malaise

2 European Muslims

A Den of Discrimination

Rushdie to van Gogh to Cartoons

The Hijab Debate

3 The Faith

A Living Faith

Declaration of Faith

Daily Prayers

Charity

Fasting

Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina

Halal and Haram

The Qur’an

The Prophet

4 Women

Image and Reality

The Qur’an and Women

Half Inheritance

Half Testimony

Domestic Violence

Honor Killings

Genital Mutilation

Adultery and Stoning

Polygamy

Divorce and Child Custody

Marrying Non-Muslims

The Qur’an and the Hijab

Muhammad and Women

Sharia and Women

Islamic Feminism

5 Jihad and Terrorism

The Qur’an and Jihad

Suicide Bombing

Jihad and Martyrdom

6 The Future

Notes

For Further Information

Acknowledgments

Index

Muslims by Region / Language*

Chart: A pie chart representing Muslim populations by region / language. From largest to smallest population: Indian Subcontinent, 425 million Muslims; Arab, 280 million; the Far East (including Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and adjacent areas), 235 million; Sub-Saharan Africa, 150 million; Turkic, 135 million; Persian, 100 million; Chinese, 20 to 30 million; Europe, 20 million; Russia, 15 to 20 million; North America, 5 to 7 million; Oceania, 400,000; and Caribbean and Latin America, 250,000. The total Muslim population ranges between 1.3 billion and 1.6 billion. The uncertainty emanates mostly from three factors: outdated census in many nations, especially those embroiled in conflicts, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan; countries such as the US and France not recording their citizens' religion; and Muslims in some countries, such as China, hiding their identity for fear of persecution. I have relied on estimates as listed in The World Factbook, www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.xhtml.

*The total Muslim population ranges between 1.3 billion and 1.6 billion. The uncertainty emanates mostly from three factors: outdated census in many nations, especially those embroiled in conflicts, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan; countries such as the US and France not recording their citizens’ religion; and Muslims in some countries, such as China, hiding their identity for fear of persecution. I have relied on estimates as listed in The World Factbook, www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.xhtml.

‡The Far East includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and adjacent areas.

Chapter 1

The Politics

UNDER SIEGE

Contrary to the popular belief that the West is under siege from Muslim terrorists, it is Muslims who have become the biggest victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001, as inconceivable as that would have seemed in the aftermath of the murder of 2,900 people. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed since in Iraq and Afghanistan. General Tommy Franks, the American commander who oversaw the invasions of both countries as part of the war on terror, famously said: We don’t do body counts. But some civic-minded groups and institutions have.

In Afghanistan, the civilian death toll, as of September 20, 2007, was at least double that of 9/11 — between 5,700 and 6,500, according to the Afghan Victim Memorial Project, run by Professor Marc Herold of the University of New Hampshire. ¹But these figures are clearly too low, considering that the Associated Press news agency was reporting more than 5,000 deaths in the first nine months of 2007 alone.²

In Iraq, where the American military presence has lasted longer than American participation in World War II, the scale of civilian deaths has been staggering. Iraq Body Count, a group of British academics and peace activists, tally between 82,772 and 90,305 reported civilian deaths to April 2008.³ This figure is also too low, considering that in zones of conflict, governments and media are generally able to report only about a tenth of casualties. Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, therefore, opted for a different methodology of mortality count, one that had been used in the Congo, Kosovo and Sudan. Its team of researchers knocked on the doors of a representative sample of Iraqi households and asked if they had suffered any casualties. Projecting the results of the survey to the 4 million Iraqi households, it estimated the death toll across the country at 654,965 as of October 2006.⁴ Using a similar method, a British polling firm, Opinion Research Business, pegged the death toll at a shocking 1.22 million as of August 2007.⁵

Professor Les Roberts, co-author of the Johns Hopkins study, told me he agreed with the updated figure: The toll stands at perhaps over a million, more than 300 times the toll on 9/11.

Whatever the exact toll, there’s no denying the carnage in the killing fields of Iraq. Yet there has been little outrage, let alone official acknowledgment, in the US or among its allies. We are communicating to the (Muslim) people of the Middle East and beyond that we don’t care for their lives, said Professor Roberts. We are sowing the seeds of terrorism that could dwarf 9/11.

Not all the casualties were caused by US and other coalition forces. In Iraq, an increasing number of deaths were attributable to Sunni-Shiite sectarianism; to collateral damage from raging battles between various militias; and to criminal gangs taking advantage of the breakdown of law and order. But the mayhem was born of the collapse of the social order under the US-led occupation, prior to which Shiites and Sunnis had lived in peace for generations, dating back to the formation of Iraq in the 1920s. There is, therefore, no escaping the moral responsibility for what transpired in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

As for the number of Iraqis injured, the estimate ranged from a confirmed figure of 125,000⁶ to between 1 million and 2 million.

More than 4 million Iraqis have been displaced — 1.2 million to Syria, 800,000 to Jordan and the rest internally, according to the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, which called it one of the worst humanitarian disasters of modern times.

Even in the spots hit by terrorists — from London and Madrid to Amman, Istanbul, Riyadh and Jeddah, through Karachi to Bali and Jakarta — more Muslims have been killed and injured than non-Muslims.

The approximately 25 million Muslims living in Western nations have been targeted in other ways.

They have been victims of racial profiling and frequent identity mix-ups at airports and border crossings, where they have been harassed and sometimes detained.

Monitored by both the secret services and the media, Muslims must be careful about what they say in emails, phone

Muslims in the World⁷

There are 1.3 billion Muslims, who constitute one-fifth of the world’s population.

Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, including in Europe, the US and Canada.

Islam is the second-largest religion after Christianity, which has 1.9 billion adherents.

There are more Muslims than there are Catholics (1.1 billion).

Muslims constitute the religious majority in 54 countries.

There are as many Muslims as there are Chinese people.

There are as many Muslims in China (33 million) as there are Canadians in Canada.

conversations and in public. They must think twice about keeping a beard or wearing overtly Muslim clothing and be mindful of how they behave in public. They must keep proving that neither they nor their faith fits the caricature of Muslims and Islam drilled into the public consciousness.

They feel under siege, living through what the Canadian Arab Federation has called psychological internment, referring to the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians during World War II. For American Muslims, the post-9/11 period has parallels with the infamous McCarthy era of the 1950s, when Senator Joseph McCarthy led a witch-hunt of suspected Communists and ruined the reputation and lives of many innocent Americans.

Muslims, therefore, had good reasons to be angry at George W. Bush, as polls have shown.⁸ But their quarrel with the US predated him, emanating from several policies:

• American support for Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, Israel’s suppression of Palestinian resistance and its 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which left 15,000 Lebanese and Palestinians dead;

• American alliances with undemocratic and oppressive Muslim, particularly Arab, regimes;

• The 1991-2003 US-led economic sanctions on Iraq, which caused the slow death of about 1 million Iraqis, half of them children under the age of five.⁹ In 1996, Madeleine Albright, US secretary of state, was asked if so high a price was worth the American goal of regime change in Baghdad. Her chilling reply: We think the price is worth it.¹⁰

• Washington’s silence over Russia’s two wars on Chechnya (1994-96 and 1999-2005), which killed between 100,000 and 200,000 Muslims.¹¹

The US did garner goodwill among Muslims for its humanitarian interventions in Indonesia following the tsunami disaster (2004), and in Bosnia (1995) and Kosovo (1999) in the former Yugoslavia, where 250,000 Muslims were killed under Serb ethnic cleansing.

The September 11 terrorist attack engendered as much sympathy for the US and Americans in the Muslim world as elsewhere; there was a candlelight vigil even in Tehran. The United Nations-approved war on Afghanistan, the base of Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda terrorist network, was supported by several Muslim states. What turned the tide of Muslim public opinion were Bush’s policies, starting with his strong backing of Israel’s brutal crackdown of the second Palestinian intifadah(uprising), from 2000 to 2003, and the 2006 Israeli invasion and indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon that killed more than 1,000 people and destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure, including residential buildings.

Then there was Iraq.

The War on Muslims

As most of the world feared then and knows now, Bush — enthusiastically supported by then British and Italian prime ministers Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi — ignored the United Nations and invaded and occupied oil-rich Iraq under false pretenses by exploiting public fears over Muslim terrorism. When every one of the reasons cited for the war was proven wrong — Saddam was not responsible for 9/11; had no

Reviews for Being Muslim

[melaknee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Children can understand the political talk that the book offers. The chapters are well formed and easy to comprehend. Good aide for Muslim children growing up in a post 9/11 America. Helpful to teach about discrimination because of religion.

[ronicadibartolo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I recommend this book for all people to read. It explains the Muslim faith and how difficult it is to be Muslim in this time. I see Muslims in a different light now. They have to deal with so much prejudice all around the world. This book talks about the customs, traditions, and the history of Muslims all around the world.

[kslade-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good overview of Islam, which debunks many myths.